


looks like morning in your eyes

by aceofdiamonds



Category: Gossip Girl
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 03:33:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6687490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blair is surprised when it happens but looking back she thinks maybe she shouldn’t be. </p><p>blair and dan and how easy it all is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	looks like morning in your eyes

**Author's Note:**

> like any and all of my gossip girl fics, dan isn’t gossip girl. this follows some sort of s4 au? there’s no louis, blair and dan do their internship, and i do what i want with the rest of it. title is from sunrise by norah jones

 

Blair is surprised when it happens but looking back she thinks maybe she shouldn’t be. How many times has this happened in movies: the two with the cutting wit and the disdain and the endless supply of unknown things in common. It makes _sense_ and that’s when Blair throws her hands up and lets it happen. When Dan kisses her she doesn’t pretend she doesn’t want it or that she hasn’t thought about it or that she doesn’t in any way return his feelings. When Dan kisses her she leans into him and she focuses on the way his hand feels on her waist, on her neck, and she smiles against his lips, and she feels _safe_.  

They talk, after, because they’re both sensible people who have been in messy relationships before and that isn’t what they want for them. This is their chance -- let them do it right. Dan says things like _you’re not as bad as i once thought_ as his fingers trace over her skin making her shiver closer to him; he adds _you’re admirable, actually_ but he doesn’t pity her for her past, just acknowledges it and the way she’s made it through. He doesn’t quite say _i love you_ yet but Blair knows that it’s there because, and she’s going to make herself hoarse with this, he’s different in all the ways possible from Chuck and from Nate, and she can tell how he feels by the way he smiles at her now and the way he’ll argue with her later and the way they’ll find each other easy as pie.

In return Blair cards her hand through his hair and tells him that _getting to know you better has been a pleasantly enjoyable experience_ and _you’re funny, humphrey_ because Serena never told her how much he could make her laugh and Blair’s laughed a lot more than she can remember these past few weeks. In return Blair presses a kiss to his cheek and doesn’t say _i love you_ either but he hooks an arm around her waist and burrows his face in her neck and he gets it anyway.

So they talk and they whisper and they decide that yes, this is what they deserve, this is what they’re doing, this is what makes them _happy_. But they also decide to keep it quiet for now because at the end of the day Gossip Girl is out there and she would love to hear all about Queen B and Lonely Boy starting something new and leaving their best friends in the dust. That’s not it at all, you see -- yes, Dan dated Serena and yes, Blair dated Nate and yes, this may be something of a betrayal, but look, don’t you see how well suited Blair and Dan are? Doesn’t that dismiss everything else? It’s been awhile since those earlier relationships, they’re all different people now, let them have this -- Serena and Nate will understand and oh, who cares what Chuck might say.

It comes down to this: Blair fits against Dan like a jigsaw puzzle. Of course she does. Everything about them is a fucking cliche -- jigsaw pieces, opposites attract, Audrey Hepburn lines, and secret affairs. She fits against him like she was made to, the hand on the small of her back not possessive like Chuck’s, not familiar like Nate’s, but comforting and different and _nice_.

Not long after that first kiss they're in a room full of people, another event that Blair doesn't know the name of and Dan couldn’t care less about. There are girls in pretty dresses spilling fake compliments, champagne giving everyone a buzz and Gossip Girl adding the edge, and so they can’t do anything but dance, they shouldn't even be doing this, really, but they're publically friends now, and privately everything else, and Blair would like it to stay that way so the hand stays on her back and they smile but they don't close the gap between them and when the song ends they part ways, Blair to Serena and Dan to Nate.

Blair ends up in Brooklyn after the party, which is par for the course at this stage, even before they expanded their relationship past platonic, no use pretending anything else. She pulls Dan up the stairs and grabs the key from his hand to open the door, and then they stumble inside, kissing before the door's shut, shoes kicked off and buttons undone on the way to the bedroom at the back. Dan fucks her into the mattress, her stockings rumpled in a way that will have her glaring at him after, quoting how much they cost, but now she’s making these little breathy moans, her lips smeared red and her matching nails digging into Dan’s shoulders, glaring the last thing from her mind.

She stays for a couple of days, like she usually does, wearing Dan’s shirts that are more hers now, her Chanel perfume lingering for days after until Dan sighs and reluctantly throws them in the laundry. Dan reluctantly taught her how to make coffee a few months ago when they were interning at W and so now she can make a decent cup when she puts the effort in. Sometimes she slips out of bed in the morning before Dan’s awake, grabbing the kettle as soon as it boils so it doesn’t wake him and spooning in the sugars and dribble of milk just the way he likes it. Those mornings when she kisses his cheek and trails her fingers down his arm until he blinks awake blearily, smiling at her, surprised and pleased, she feels like she’s accomplished something. More often than not, though, she fucks it up on purpose so Dan will roll his eyes and call her a princess and make it for her while she swings her legs from her perch on the counter, trading the mug between them before he steps between her legs, tipping her head back to kiss her before he slides into her, right there in the kitchen, her body sliding to the edge of the counter when he pulls her closer. Both scenarios are good mornings.

Blair goes home when Dorota's voicemails get to the point of a whole lot of Polish and accusations of Mr Lonely Boy hiding her away. The Upper East Side always seems a bit dull when she comes back, like there’s something missing from across the bridge. The feeling always makes her wrinkle her nose, confused at herself, and then she’ll snap her fingers at Dorota and take a bath in a tub the size of Humphrey’s kitchen and everything’s back to normal.

Dan’s different, so different to the men in her life before him. She can have intellectual conversations with someone who actually knows what she’s talking about; heated debates about Picasso versus Cezanne, about Italian directors, about the merits of Rory’s boyfriends because of course Dan watches Gilmore Girls and of course Blair pretends she doesn’t as she protests Logan’s worth. They have meticulously timed dates to museums that make Blair feel like something out of a ridiculous movie even as she holds Dan’s hand and wanders around her favourite galleries with someone who appreciates what she’s saying, what they’re seeing. She can laugh without feeling like she’s letting her guard down and they take turns at being in control, always equal always balanced. It’s so different, this feeling, that Blair has to sit down and take the time out to realise that’s because she’s well and truly happy in this relationship, however secret it is, and that it’s the first time she’s ever been able to say that.

Not that she tells Dan that. Sharp insults burst from her when she starts feeling too soft, just enough to make him blink and then throw one back. That's another way he matches her: the right balance in bickering and kissing so she doesn't get bored. Nate always took it too far one way and Chuck the other.

On the days where she's not feeling completely up for the world she slouches on Dan’s ugly couch, her feet resting in his lap as he types and types and types his fantasy worlds of glorious cities and princesses with headbands to match their shoes. Some days she insists he reads parts out to her and she offers her edits, feet digging into his thigh when he disagrees. He starts writing science fiction and then he scraps it two days later and when Blair asks why he ducks his head and mumbles something about this world being good enough as it is, why bother changing it? and she groans a little, takes it all to heart, says _you’re better at realistic fiction anyway, you huge sap._

He writes a series of short stories featuring areas of the city and he brings them to her to read, head dropping on to her shoulder as she makes corrections and raises a hand to pat his cheek in approval at a paragraph or two.  

 _maybe I’ll write_ , she says, and half-means it.

 _you have a lot to say,_ he agrees, and means it. _do it_ , he adds, doing that face when he latches onto an idea and won’t ever let it go. _we can be a power writing couple. become one of the greats._

Blair laughs and dismisses it but some time later, after Dan gets his short stories published, she picks up a pen because yes, she’s playing with this whim in the traditional way, the laptop’s for the second draft. She writes a few sentences about growing up in a city the size of your heart and she scribbles down metaphors for love and violence in a way that makes her scrunch up her nose in distaste. She might come back to the writing later.

Instead she talks to Dan about fashion and clothes and the ideas that have been leaping out of her head for months now. He listens to what she’s saying, pulling out a scrapbook that’s torn at the edges and contains a couple of half-hearted sketches of the Flatiron Building and he encourages her.

Blair’s never needed much encouragement and so she starts drawing and starts thinking and starts feeling everything she’d forgotten about the fashion industry. She curls up on Dan’s soft, comfy couch with Dan beside her and one of Dan’s not completely awful records in the player and they _work_ , just like that.

The best part, and this is how she knows she's grown, is that when everyone finds out about them, Queen B and Lonely Boy, no one bats an eyelid because they're so wrapped up in their own dramas. Blair stands by the sidelines, her hand in Dan’s, and watches as Ivy is exposed, as Chuck’s empire comes crashing down around him, as the van der Woodsens implode messily and beautifully. They find out that the two who always hated each other are miles away from all of that hate now and they nod their heads and say, oh, very nice, and they spin right back to their own problems, and Blair finds that that's exactly what she was hoping for even as Dan laughs and jokes that her time in the spotlight is over. It was never a spotlight, not with Gossip Girl and her hoards of life-shattering messages, and so Blair nudges Dan and says that she's perfectly happy exactly where she is. The real spotlight will find her should she ever want it. 

Blair stands in Central Park, she tips her head back, and she kisses Dan, so stupidly happy her past self would be furious with her for who she found it with. Dan kisses her, his hand splayed on her back, and that’s what Gossip Girl focuses on when they focus on the story two whole days later. They look at their heroes, at Blair and at Dan, and they look at how they fit, and they say, _well, hey, upper east side, i don’t know about you but this doesn’t come as a surprise at all._

  
  



End file.
